Bruising Bruins dominate South Carolina, win an

It was dominating. It was overwhelming. It was powder-blue pummeling, eight-clap crushing, Westwood fantastic.

It was the UCLA ladies’s basketball staff needing barely two hours to full the struggles of 45 years, a stunningly swarming triumph unmatched in even the best of Bruin athletic traditions.

Break out a new banner. Make room in the Pauley rafters. A new assortment of heroes is coming home, and they began the celebration early.

For the first time since 1978, and the first time in the NCAA period, the UCLA ladies are national basketball champions after a 79-51 finals blowout victory Sunday over favored powerhouse South Carolina.

“Oh my gosh,” said weeping star Lauren Betts after the ultimate buzzer.

Oh my, Lauren. This was a heartfelt triumph for the towering event most excellent participant who overcame mental health points to change into the hardest determine on the ground.

“I do it for my teammates,” she said during the celebration. “I don’t do it for me.”

Oh my, Gabby. This was a legendary triumph for Gabriela Jaquez, who scored 21 factors with 10 rebounds in the ultimate while her brother, former Bruins star Jaime Jaquez Jr., watched from the stands in the future after he scored 32 factors for the Miami Heat.

“I imagined this moment, I imagined it so many times,” she said. “Oh my gosh, I’m so happy.”

Oh my, Kiki Rice, Angela Dugalic, Gianna Kneepkens and Charlisse Leger-Walker, this being a victory for the rarest of groups in school basketball — a group led by six seniors and graduate college students who scored more than 90% of the factors during the event and have been overtly fueled by a want to play one more recreation together.

Oh my, Cori, this being a legacy triumph for coach Cori Close, a John Wooden disciple who led through considerate motivation instead of senseless screaming. This was her fifteenth season as the Bruins’ boss, which beforehand made her the longest tenured coach without a national title.

“It’s truly indescribable,” she said from the celebration stage afterward. “The loyalty, the steadfast spirit, the character that they’ve chosen day in and day out. … I am just so humbled that they’ve chosen to commit to our mission.”

One of Close’ mantras is, “Sometimes you, sometimes me, always us.”

In Sunday’s finale, it was always all of them, a scrambling, scrapping bunch that shocked the three-time champion Gamecocks into submission in the third-biggest blowout in ladies’s ultimate historical past.

This was UCLA’s first finals look in the NCAA period, and they have been making an attempt to win their first title since Anne Meyers-Drysdale led the Bruins to an AIAW championship in 1978.

Yet they never blinked.

“This was a business trip for us,” said Dugalic. “We had the mentality that the job’s not finished. Now the job is finished.”

Jaquez set the tone in the first quarter by following a Dugalic miss with a flying layup as she was despatched sprawling to the ground. She was fouled, transformed a three-point play, and the Bruins have been rapidly sending a message.

They wouldn’t be intimidated. They wouldn’t be pushed around. And they might play every second, as evidenced by the first-quarter, buzzer-beating trey by Rice as she tumbled backward to give them a 21-10 lead.

The Bruins didn’t even panic when their chief appeared to panic, as Betts spent practically half of the first quarter on the bench complaining that, “I’ve got something stuck in my throat.”

UCLA coach Cori Close, middle, celebrates with her gamers after guiding the Bruins to the NCAA ladies’s basketball national championship on Sunday.

(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)

Trainers checked her throat, gave her an inhaler and ultimately nursed her back on to the court, where she told an ESPN interviewer that her throat was just dry from the desert air.

The Bruins stored the heat on during a second quarter in which they made errors, appeared to lose momentum, then collected themselves to keep their big edge. At one level UCLA dedicated 4 consecutive turnovers and the Gamecocks closed the hole to 11, but then UCLA’s protection obtained powerful again and layups by Rice and Kneepkens helped them regain their benefit.

At halftime UCLA led 36-23 and the sport was basically over.

Jaquez put the bow on it when she hit a late three-pointer that made it 79-45, her shot adopted by a smile and a scream to the heavens.

Highlights from UCLA’s win over South Carolina in the NCAA ladies’s basketball national championship recreation.

“Gabs is incredible,” said Leger-Walker. “She is that person that you never doubt is going to give her all. She impacts the game in so many ways.”

Leger-Walker ended the afternoon dancing with her teammates just as they’ve danced all season.

“I’m still processing the fact that we are national champions,” she said.

Believe it. These Bruins will likely be dancing perpetually.

UCLA gamers have a good time after defeating South Carolina for the NCAA ladies’s basketball championship.